This may be the shortest "Big Picture" analysis I've ever read: the geopolitical impact of Bush's war. And how's this from Business Week, of all places? "The Administration risks turning what was once trumpeted as the American Century into the Anti-American Century."
When the supposed beneficiaries of the "first MBA Presidency" are saying things like that, it ought to give one pause. So should remarks like this from a respected historian.
"We have, with ignorance and arrogance aforethought, brought the world (and ourselves) to crisis -- and perhaps to chaos."
We've gone through the looking glass.
Posted by Linkmeister at March 16, 2003 12:26 PMWell, by this time tomorrow..we are either at war, or beginning a peace process..
This is scary...very scary..
Scary and self-inflicted out of blind faith in some damned think tank ideology.
Posted by: Linkmeister at March 16, 2003 04:04 PMWell, we've already got preachers saying that it's the apocalypse. I find it kind of ironic that Bush draws much of his political power from the religious right.
Posted by: ali at March 16, 2003 08:12 PMFrom what I've read, many of those folks approve because they take this as a precursor of the "end-times," or some such literal reading of Revelations.
Posted by: Linkmeister at March 16, 2003 08:18 PMnow you see this is why i quit doing news. it just depresses me, which is not how i want to remember these last glorious days, months, whatever, of the american empire.
it was good while it lasted, yes?
Posted by: @feckless at March 17, 2003 12:44 AMHere's a thought...who cares? I mean, Bush has proven that he's not listening to anybody but his own inner voices. So, however much any of us do or don't want this war, it's coming. I know that, personally, my life won't change one whit whether we go to war or not.
So call me short-sighted, but I can't find it in me to get too worked up either way.
Posted by: TJ at March 17, 2003 07:20 AMWell, TJ, dollars spent "pacifying" Iraq and cleaning up after any new terrorist attacks provoked by this will not be spent helping get health insurance for 41M Americans, shoring up Medicare/Medicaid, or funding education; so it might have an effect on your life you haven't thought of yet.
Posted by: Linkmeister at March 17, 2003 08:27 AMOkay, just because none of the three things you named are of concern for me, that doesn't mean they can be thrown out completely. (I'm not quite THAT arrogant.) So I concede your point. However, the fact remains that Bush has made up his mind. I, for one, see no need to do the dance of the lance with a couple windmills, just because I happen to disagree with a war. Why swim against the current, when the current doesn't care?
(FWIW, I don't disagree with a war. I just disagree with the stated reasons for pursuing it. I support a war in spite of President Bush. I think he'd have started off with a lot smaller support base, but wouldn't have seen it disappear as dramatically, if he'd said all along that this was about Hussein snubbing U.N. resolutions for the last 11 or 12 years. Who knows? That might even have gotten the U.N. behind him.)
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